Protector

Prologue

I was nineteen when I had my daughter. My boyfriend at the time had balked at the idea of being a father and encouraged me to terminate when I'd told him I was pregnant. Admittedly, I had considered it, blinded at the time by my love for Ben. But I'd found out too late and I wasn't able to get an abortion, so I went through with the pregnancy and eventually had my beautiful baby girl in my arms.

Ben had become more and more distant as the months went by, slipping little comments about how the baby probably wasn't his or that I'd deliberately gotten pregnant to trap him. It wasn't until after Aurora, "Rory", was born that Ben started to become violent. It was my only saving grace, knowing that he'd at least respected me enough not to me while I was pregnant.

At first, it was just a harsh grip of my arm, pulling me around. But it soon morphed into hitting, mostly with an open hand but a few times with a closed fist, leaving me with dark bruises that I struggled to hide from my friends and family.

My best friend, Tao, was the first to notice and confronted me about it all over dinner. It took a few weeks but eventually I broke down and admitted everything, even how I feared for Rory's safety around Ben. Tao comforted me and offered for me to stay with him and his girlfriend, Elle, until I could get on my feet again.

I refused initially, not wanting to strain our friendship with that level of trust but he insisted and so I found myself packing up as much as I could for myself and Rory and moving into the spare room at Tao and Elle's place.

We stayed for six months while I managed to find a decent job and daycare for Rory. By that time, I'd found us a tiny little flat that suited us just fine.

Ben fought for shared custody of our daughter but thanks to Tao's testimony and thought to take photos of my injuries, the courts denied him any access, instead instructing him to pay child support. He rarely followed through with it but it didn't bother me, I made enough money now that Rory was comfortable.

All Aurora and I needed was each other. And that's what we had.